Joby Aviation heads into its June 2 earnings print with options positioning at its most bullish in nearly a year — a sharp reversal from the defensive tone that dominated the stock through April and early May.
The options signal is the standout. The put/call ratio has collapsed to 0.28, well below its 20-day average of 0.34 and close to the 52-week low of 0.26. That reading sits 1.55 standard deviations below the mean — meaning call demand has overwhelmed puts to a degree that is unusually skewed relative to recent history. The backdrop is a stock that has gained 33% over the past month to $11.90, including a 9% week-on-week move, though it gave back 3.3% on Friday. Options traders are leaning hard into the momentum rather than hedging against it.
Short positioning has quietly eased, adding a second layer to the bullish tilt. Short interest as a percentage of the free float has pulled back to 9.3%, down from roughly 13.4% a few weeks ago — a meaningful cover across the period. The borrow market reflects no squeeze pressure: cost to borrow runs at just 0.68% annualised, and availability has tightened to around 60% of short interest after loosening through late April, suggesting the lending pool is active but not yet constrained. The ORTEX short score of 67.7 remains elevated — placing Joby in the 6th percentile of the universe by short score rank — but the direction of travel in raw short interest is distinctly downward.
The bull-bear debate on Joby centres on one core disagreement: whether the regulatory and commercialisation timeline justifies a premium multiple on a company burning cash with no revenue. Bulls, including Needham (Buy, $18 target), point to Joby's eVTOL leadership, its Toyota-backed balance sheet, and accelerating progress toward FAA certification as evidence that the long-term prize is intact. The bear case — most explicitly laid out by Goldman Sachs (Sell, $10 target) — rests on execution risk, unknown certification timing, and the reality that the current $11.90 price already prices in considerable optimism for a pre-revenue operation. Morgan Stanley trimmed its target to $13 from $15 in early May while maintaining a neutral stance, a signal that even sideline analysts see the near-term run as having moved ahead of the fundamentals. The price-to-book multiple has expanded roughly 50% over the past month to nearly 8x, making valuation a live conversation going into the print.
The ownership picture carries a notable tension. Toyota holds 13% and has not moved its stake. But as documented in the previous ORTEX note on this stock, CEO JoeBen Bevirt has sold nearly $9 million of shares across six weeks into the rally — most recently 421,000 shares at $10.38 on May 15. That systematic selling has continued even as the stock pushed higher. Joby's earnings history adds one more data point: the last two prints generated 1-day moves of 15% and 19% respectively, both to the upside, followed by sustained five-day gains. The June 2 report will test whether a 33% pre-earnings rally has already consumed the upside that typically follows — or whether certification progress and cash runway data can justify another leg.
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